News Value Vs. Gore p. 12

By: M.L. Stein

Several California newspaper readers respond negatively to
graphic photos published on the front page of two newspapers sp.

NEWSPAPER READING MAY be declining in some parts, but pictures still grab attention and roil emotions.
The Riverside, Calif., Press-Enterprise's page one, color photo of a woman who hanged herself in war-torn Bosnia drew complaints from numerous readers and a strong defense from the paper.
A day later, the Sacramento Bee weathered a similar barrage over its color picture in the sports section of the Tour de France bicyclist who died after slamming into a concrete block while rounding a curve.
Both were Associated Press photos.
The hanging suicide, apparently because of fear of reputed Serbian atrocities, was considered too graphic by some 80 readers, who phoned and faxed their objections. About 20 others voiced approval of the photo, which shows the woman hanging from a tree.
"We're fully aware these people are suffering but we don't need to see the death in front of our faces," one subscriber wrote.
Another reader commented: "Sometimes the truth is incredibly ugly. I can agree with that. But it was pretty outrageous to find it on page one."
Managing editor Mel Opotowsky said many complainants said the photo forced them to explain suicide to their young children ? or to lie.
One woman related that she told her small child that the victim "cared a lot about trees and was hugging a tree."
A few callers said the picture evoked painful memories of a suicide in their families.
Opotowsky responded in a Press-Enterprise article of the reaction by saying, "The story that the picture tells is a horror. What is going on in Bosnia is a horror. It is a holocaust, the destruction of a people's body, mind, spirit and their worldly goods.
"It is the job of a good newspaper to tell its readers what is going on in a way that they can comprehend the scope and intensity, as well as just the facts. The picture tells the story of the holocaust in a way that tens of thousands of words cannot."
As a father and grandfather, Opotowsky continued, he sympathized with those who had to deal with questions from their children. He added that the decision to run the photo was made after "intense discussion" among the
paper's editors.
"We discussed, for instance, the failure of much of the American press 60 years ago to adequately describe another holocaust and the consequent failure of a good people, the American people, to try to do something about it," Opotowsky disclosed. "In the end, it came down to the journalistic obligation to tell a story of great magnitude to the best of our abilities."
One reader, who agreed, wrote the paper: "The picture of a refugee woman who had hung herself near the overrun safe haven of Srebrenica was graphic, horrifying, disgusting and absolutely appropriate for the front page. What the radical Serbs are doing today in Bosnia is no different than what Hitler's SS did to the Jews in World War II."
A Press-Enterprise survey found the picture was used by the New York Times, Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune and the San Jose Mercury News ? all inside and in black-and-white, Opotowsky said. The Washington Post did not use the photo but carried a front page story on the hanging.
"We may have been the only paper to use it in color on the front page," Opotowsky said.
Associated Press executive photo editor Vin Alabiso told E&P that copies of about half of the nine or 10 newspapers received by the AP photo department ran the picture in black and white.
Sally Stapleton, an AP editor who had just returned from Paris, said she saw the picture in two or three French newspapers ? on the inside.
A United Nations official reported that in Bosnia civilians had been killed, raped and mutilated by having their noses and ears cut off, according to a July 25 New York Times story.
The Times said the report by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the UN Secretary General's special representative for human rights in the former Yugoslavia, was the first account of atrocities by senior UN official based on an investigation of the Serbian conquest of Srebrenica, where the hanged woman was believed to be from. Mazowiecki termed the human rights violations "barbarous."
The Bee's 8- by 8-inch AP photo of the fallen bike rider "fairly leapt off the page in its dramatic impact," wrote the paper's ombudsman, Art Nauman. The young contestant was shown in a fetal position, blood gushing from his head.
"Only a few times in my 15-year tenure as an ombudsman have I had as an intense outpouring of negative reader comments as I had to this picture," Nauman recalled.
He said the letter and calls of outrage included such descriptions as "appalling," "shocking," "absolutely insensitive."
"You can't justify it," fumed one reader. "It was cheap, low-ball journalism."
Another commented, "It was appropriate for a tabloid, but totally inappropriate for the Bee."
Nauman called on assistant managing editor Kent Pollock to respond.
"Obviously, we apologized over the use of the picture, Pollock said. "This was an important story, given the fact that it was only the third time in more than 90 years that a bicyclist was killed in the Tour de France, the most famous bike race in the world."
According to Pollock, all the wire photos of the race accident displayed blood, much of which was cropped out of the offending shot on the front of the section.
The editor contended the image told the story well and highlighted the importance of wearing a helmet. The helmetless victim died 30 minutes after hitting the rock at 55 miles an hour. One of the four readers who said they had no objection to the picture, told Nauman it provided a lesson for her bike-riding son on the protection provided by headgear.
In his own assessment, Nauman said there was "no question about its news value and power. I probably would have printed it . . . but certainly not in color, that large, or in that position." He noted that many readers said they would not have objected if the photo had been in black and white and on an inside page.
?(The Riverside (Calif) Press-Enterprise's page one, color photo of a woman who hanged herself in war-torn Bosnia drew complaints from numerous readers and a strong defense from the paper) [Photo & Caption]
?(The Sacramento Bee ran a photo in color of a bleeding Fabio Casartelli of Italy after he fell while riding in the Tour de France. Casartelli later died from his injuries.